Officer Who Killed Mentally Ill Elderly Woman Acquitted of Murder

Update: The NYPD sergeant who fatally shot a mentally ill 66-year-old woman in 2016 has been acquitted of her murder reports the New York Post. Officer Hugh Barry fired at the woman after she approached him with a bat.

“If she hadn’t taken that step, we wouldn’t be having a trial. We wouldn’t be having a funeral,” Barry’s defense attorney Andrew Quinn said Wednesday.

“All of a sudden all of the officers rushed into the apartment,” Jennifer said during Tuesday’s trial. “I did not hear (Deborah) any more. I was myself yelling, screaming — ‘What happened? Did you shoot my sister?’”

Sgt. Barry was reportedly responding to a call for help when he came to the elderly woman’s apartment in the Bronx’s Castle Hill neighborhood. Police had been called to Danner’s apartment on multiple occasions. In those instances, they simply aided Jennifer in taking her sister to the hospital.

But New York City police commissioner James O’ Neill said proper protocol was not followed by Sgt. Barry that night.

The officer claimed upon entering the apartment, he saw a naked Danner holding a pair of scissors. He said she eventually let go of the scissors but picked up a baseball bat and began to charge at him. Barry shot her twice.

“Our officers, in the overwhelming majority of instances, handled those instances very well, with tremendous skill, with tremendous sensitivity,” O’ Neill remarked following the Oct. 18 shooting. “That’s why this tragedy is so shocking. … Something went horribly wrong here.”

“Every life to me is precious,” he continued. “I think that we’ve been in this business a very long time, we’ve established procedures and protocols for handling emotionally disturbed people. That’s to keep everybody safe, that’s to keep the cops safe, the community safe and the person that we’re dealing with safe.”

On Tuesday, Assistant District Attorney Newton Mendys echoed the commissioner’s sentiment in his opening statements — the sergeant did not act in accordance with police training.

“The evidence will prove that Sgt. Barry failed — he failed in his training … he failed to listen to Mrs. Danner … he failed to grasp the actions of a mentally ill woman,” Mendys said. “Did Sgt. Barry honestly believe Deborah Danner (posed a threat), and was that belief reasonable?”

This website or its third-party tools use cookies, which are necessary to its functioning and required to achieve the purposes illustrated in the privacy policy. If you want to know more or withdraw your consent to all or some of the cookies, please refer to the privacy policy.
By closing this banner, scrolling on this page, clicking a link or continuing to browse otherwise, you agree to the use of cookies.OkRead more